Is it Better to Mine or Trade Crypto-Currencies?

When the bitcoins were first introduced in 2009, one bitcoin was valued only $0.008. But after nine years, its value has soared up to $8,000. In fact, a man named Koch bought 5,000 bitcoins in 2009 for only $27 and now those 5,000 bitcoins are now worth $886,000. It would be a lost opportunity if you don’t invest in bitcoins and make the most of the golden chance that it presents. You can have your own bitcoins either through mining them yourself or by just buying them from someone else.

Bitcoin Mining

When it comes to investing in bitcoins, the beginners often stumble upon a myriad of mining methods just by searching for it online a little. The mining of the bitcoins basically involves creating a secure wallet where you can store your bitcoins and generating the bitcoins through software based miners or the dedicated mining rigs.

The software based miners work from your computer and make heavy use of your graphics cards to mine the coins. But since bitcoin mining is designed to become more and more difficult with time, this method has basically stopped by now unless you have a really powerful gaming rig.

The dedicated mining rigs are designed only for bitcoin mining and contain an array of powerful graphics cards. You can configure this rig by connecting it to your computer and then leaving it running somewhere in your room. This kind of rig is more expensive but mines bitcoins faster than using some software in your computer.

Trading Bitcoins

Not many people have the time or patience to wait for the miners to mint the bitcoins, as it takes a really long time to make just a fraction of a bitcoin even if you have a powerful mining rig. Besides the mining rigs are running non-stop all the time and require a lot of electricity. It makes a lot of sense for many of the people to just buy the bitcoins from someone else.

Bitcoins can be traded from exchanges, bitcoin exchanges fx contracts or directly from market places through other people. Like any other commodity in the market, you can basically buy bitcoins from anyone who has bitcoins of their own. Depending on where you live in the world, you have many different options for trading bitcoins – wire transfers, credit or debit cards, or using hard cash money. Moreover, some countries actually have bitcoin ATMs installed in various places.

Advantages of Mining over Trading

Mining bitcoins can be done in the privacy of your home without having to deal with anyone

Mining allows people to keep a track of all of their bitcoins.

All minted bitcoins are untainted and have never belonged to anyone else.

There are no exchange fees or any other costs other than the investment in the mining rig.

Advantages of Trading over Mining

Trading saves your time and electricity that you would have to spend on the mining.

You do not have to wait for anything – you can instantly buy the bitcoins as opposed to mining where you have to wait for many days to mint the coins.

You can save the money you would spend on the mining rig which can be really very expensive or the electricity bill.

The value of bitcoins can fluctuate while you were mining the coins. But when you are trading the bitcoins, you can buy them when they are a little bit lower in value and sell them as soon as their cost goes high – making the most profit possible.

Conclusion

Bitcoins are profitable asset to have in the modern times. You can have bitcoins either through mining or through buying them directly. However, the mining is no longer a viable option for most of the people at this time. Instead you can start investing in bitcoins just by buying them from a trusted exchange or dealer.